One of the great political questions today is: Can we have a morally compassionate capitalism?

The Open Mind explores the world of ideas across politics, media, science, technology, and the arts. The American Prospect is republishing this excerpt.

Alexander Heffner: It’s a pleasure to have you here. You consider yourself a charitarion not a philanthropist. What is a charitarian? Why are you a charitarian and not a philanthropist?

Lawrence Benenson: Well, I hope I am a charitarian. A very close friend of mine and I were speaking about this and I said to him, what is the difference between philanthropy and charity, and his immediate answer, so beautiful, he said philanthropy is about the giver, charity is about the receiver, and it was like a thunderbolt, lightning bolt in my brain. I think I want to be someone who cares about charity and about the receiver. I don’t need publicity, I don’t want publicity. I just want people to be helped and to suffer less. So I’ve taken to calling myself a charitarian, which is very distinct from being a philanthropist. I have nothing against philanthropists, as long as they give money to help people directly. That’s, that’s all there is to it.

Heffner: But your work is really fundamental today because they’re institutions, not just people, but they’re institutions that are suffering the moral values that are not being upheld in the way that I think they resonated with our countrymen at one point. Do you see that erosion of values as something that’s unmistakable, unavoidable right now that we have to consider?

Benenson: Well, I agree. It’s unmistakable. I do think it is avoidable, however, and I am encouraged. Just this week, the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group in Washington gathered over 180 CEOs of major corporations, the five biggest ones that spring to mind immediately, and all of these CEOs signed a pact saying that all stakeholders of a corporation are equally important, not just shareholders anymore, communities, customers, employees, everyone is on board the bus or the boat or whatever metaphor you want to go into the future and have it be a bright future. Not just the shareholders getting in the lifeboats and everyone else fending for themselves. So I think that this is a bright spot. I also think a very bright spot, huge encouragement is from the large automakers and the state of California who have recently banded together and said no to the president. They have elected to keep emission standards what they are, not degrade the emission standards. So why would someone want to create more smog and more air pollution?

These emissions standards have been, you know, used by the carmakers for many years now and they’re not going to go back and make big gas-guzzling pollution makers because the people wouldn’t buy them.

Heffner: We can have a morally compassionate capitalism, right; I mean that’s one of the great political questions today as to whether or not,

Benenson: Well, when I was growing up, there was a moral to every story. There was a moral to every sitcom because Happy Days, The Brady Bunch, All in the Family, there was always a moral at the end of the show and you learned from it if you were paying attention. And most of these shows were also taped for a live studio audience, which means there weren’t, wasn’t canned laughter. It wasn’t the joke writers saying, okay, if I can get 17 jokes in this show, you know, I’ll be able to take that trip to Argentina next week. People were writing to make the world a better place. They were trying to get somewhere and have our children grow up with morals and you know, I don’t know if it’s 20 years or 30 years ago on television, there started to be television shows that were more slice of life and were reality-based, but they weren’t reality-based because of this canned laughter stuff. And they weren’t reality-based because kids wouldn’t talk to their parents the way they do on these shows. And if they do, the parents would do something about it. It wouldn’t be all sarcasm all the time. So I think that the people of the United States, the vast majority, you know, if there are 300 million people in the country, I know there are more, but call it 300 million, 295 million really want to take their kids to school or go to work and have a nice time on the weekends and get home for dinner. They’re not worried about all the stuff that the media seems to just pound us with every day. I live in New York City and if you get in an elevator now there’s a screen on the elevator telling you how, God forbid, an athlete who plays for the Colorado baseball team has, his ankle, is broken.

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What do I care? I’m sorry for the guy, I’m sorry for his family, but there’s no hierarchy of importance. You know, the next line on the ticker below the, you know, on the bottom of the screen might be about how, God forbid a grocery store in Mumbai, India had just been robbed. I’m sorry that that grocery store was robbed. I think that’s worse than the broken ankle of the Colorado baseball player. But you know what, I just want to get to the first floor so I can try and get my train.

Heffner: One of the things that’s top of mind is Patriotic Millionaires and it addresses the systemic economic dysfunction right now in our political system. And the fact that those people who have to prioritize aren’t being represented when we elect officeholders. You know, you have been outward and pioneering when it comes to considering a government that truly will be of, for, and by the people. How can we get there, charitarianism and philanthropy, are they the vehicles through which we can propel a better public policy?

Benenson: The charity and philanthropy is a wonderful vehicle to make the world a better place and people are trying really hard to make the world a better place through foundations and giving money away and helping other people. A lot of foundations though have been created in the last 20, 30 years, tens of thousands, and they are, in my opinion, tax avoidance vehicles. If someone is smart enough to work for a huge financial institution and to get a $10 million bonus, say, they don’t want to pay taxes because, oh my gosh, so they put the $10 million in a foundation and God forbid their sister-in-law has arthritis. So make it an arthritis foundation. By law the IRS regulation states that the foundation must spend—it’s very tricky—spend, not give, spend five percent, which would be half a million dollars, but in that half a million dollars, the person who creates the foundation can rent office space, can pay his sister-in-law $100 thousand to be the president of the foundation, give his brother-in-law $50 thousand to be the treasurer. Pretty soon you only have $200 thousand that goes to arthritis research. And guess what? I’m pretty sure the person who works for this financial institution that made this big bonus isn’t going to go out and hire doctors. $200 thousand is going to go to a different arthritis foundation that does have doctors.

Heffner: That’s what, it feels like that’s what’s happening in the political realm, that there’s just a lot of musical chairs of funding, but really not tackling the central problem right now.

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